Various Positions (20 page)

ELEVEN

On the first day of the Christmas holidays, the sky turned as white as the ground so that the whole world looked anemic. My mom set the furnace too high and a film of static electricity lifted the hairs on my arms. Sixty was leaving for Argentina to meet her dad that afternoon and I felt a dull softness on both my temples, the throb of encroaching boredom. I slid around the house in my socks, trying to see how long I could go without lifting my feet off the floor. I ended up in the kitchen, where the linoleum made this easier. My mom had made a list of possible activities for me and posted it on the fridge with a magnet from our dentist. It was my least favorite magnet, shaped like a giant molar, with a dented top and big, leglike roots. It gave me the creeps. I pushed the magnet aside and looked at the list. I hated it already, hated it from a tightening knot in my stomach. When I saw that the first idea was to pick up my mom’s dry cleaning, I crumpled the sheet into a ball and tossed it into the recycling bin.

For the first few days of the break my mom was attending a seminar at the university, so I had the house to myself until she came home in the late afternoon. I took scalding showers in the morning and sat in my towel in front of my computer, leaving beads of water dotted on my shoulders, my wet hair heavy like an animal on my back. I checked my e-mail first. Chantal had gone home to Saskatchewan for the holidays, so she e-mailed me now instead of calling. She was becoming increasingly disciplined and made only small mistakes, like having one too many bites at dinner or accidentally drinking a regular pop. I wrote back one-liners that I knew would encourage her, things like
You’re almost there!
and
You’ll do better tomorrow!
and
I actually prefer Diet Coke!

I googled Roderick over and over again. I found pictures of him with different haircuts, longer layers that grazed the back of his neck, messy bits that hung in his eyes. He was much younger in some and his face had a clumsiness to it, a goofy smile that favored one side, like his features hadn’t quite figured out the best place to settle. I wrote
girlfriend
beside his name in the Google bubble and searched for more pictures of him next to women. I wanted to see what they looked like, the women he had loved, see if they were tall and beautiful, whether they had wide shoulders and prominent wrist bones, wore silky things that gaped off their backs. Or would they have frizzy hair and Japanese running shoes; would they be looking sideways, beyond the camera, impatient to get back to their intellectual lives? Would any of them be teenage girls?

At some point amidst all this wondering, I scrolled down my Web site history and, turning away for a second as though I wasn’t completely aware of what I was doing, let the cursor hover over a particular spot. The screen was like paper towel laid over pink Kool-Aid, instantly absorbing a spill. Then came Mandi. She materialized in two round phenomena, bum and head, a crescent of tanned back in between. My eyes dipped from one end to the other, trying to take her all in at once. I had discovered that if you clicked on the
FREE TOUR
button on the top right corner of the Web page, you could meet Mandi’s friends too. There was Jordan, who sat with her legs akimbo, rubbing a Popsicle between her boobs. She was smiling, sticking out her purple tongue as if to prove that the Popsicle wasn’t just for her chest, that it had been in her mouth too. There was Puma with white-blond hair and complicated underwear that didn’t cover anything that underwear was supposed to cover. And there was Valeria, who was hard and oily, a rhinestone floating over her belly button like a shimmering star. She lay on her side, her knees folding open with the looseness of a baby’s while she pressed a long, white-tipped fingernail between her legs. But Mandi was my favorite. I loved her face, the sleepy weight of her eyelids, the soft indifference around her mouth. It hung open just the right amount, looked wet without being slobbery, as if her saliva were made of something thinner than usual. The bones of her bum amazed me. They were so visible, flexing up into the camera, tightening her flesh into two perfect humps. Then, between these humps, that mysterious circle, dark and colorless at the same time, impossible to really see, and yet still the focus of the picture.

I took off my towel and went to the full-length mirror on the back of the closet door. I got down on my hands and knees and faced away from my reflection. Arching my back, I brought my chest lower to the floor, trying to bring my bum up higher. It wasn’t a difficult pose for a dancer. I turned around. The position was just about right, my body catlike and defenseless. But my expression was important too. I tried to remember what was so alluring about Mandi’s face, the way she looked quiet and available and completely ready for sex.

*   *   *

Later in the week, when my mom was done with her seminar, I came down to the kitchen in my pajamas and she made us pancakes for breakfast.

“These are gooey.” She looked down at the fried dough she’d piled on my plate. She took my fork from my hand, pressed the tines into the surface of the top one. It made a squishy sound and she laughed. “How did I manage to make them so gooey?”

“They’re fine, Mom.” I took the maple syrup from the fridge door and handed it to her. Then I sat down at the kitchen island, watched her lay the frying pan in the sink.

“Are you still mad at me?” she asked with her back turned. Then she sat across from me and drizzled maple syrup onto her pancakes. “Are you going to let me get you something for Christmas?”

“I don’t really need anything.”

“No?” Her voice lilted musically. “You don’t want some new ballet clothes or some books or … some jewelry?”

“Not really.”

“
Georgia
. Since when don’t you like presents?”

I shrugged.

“I could get you some nice pajamas or, I don’t know, a housecoat or … do you need new underwear?”

I looked up from my plate. My fork clanked on its surface.

“What?” she asked hopefully.

All I could picture were the bright strips of fabric that stretched over unexpected parts of Mandi and Puma. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to own clothing like that.

“Underwear?” she asked.

It didn’t seem right to let her buy me things when I was so angry with her, but the idea of sexy underwear made my palms itch. “If you
really
want to get me something.”

She started to smile. “Of course…” She pressed her lips together. “That seems like a pretty nice idea. Some new underwear. A camisole or something. Some simple lingerie.”

“Yeah. Lingerie.”

“We could go out one afternoon this week. Get you properly fitted.” She was bouncing her legs under the island and she tapped me with her big toe. “Is there … is there any particular reason you want underwear, sweetie?”

“No.”

“There isn’t, oh, I don’t know, there isn’t someone special in the picture? Someone you care about? A new boy?”

I looked out at the backyard, felt my cheeks burn.

“Oh.” Her voice slid melodically through the syllable. “So I’m right.” She paused. “Do you want to tell me about him?”

I shook my head. There was a lump in my throat.

“You can talk to me about these things, you know. Anything.”

I nodded hard. I could feel the serrated ridge of my top teeth as I bit into my lip.

“What’s the problem, sweetie? Does he … is it … does he know how you feel? Does he not like you back?”

I shook my head.

“Okay.” She popped off her stool, took her N
UMBER
O
NE
M
OM
mug over to the coffee machine. I heard the quiet glug of the pour, the simmer of the burner as it yearned for the pot’s replacement. “So there’s a different problem. Does he have a girlfriend?”

My attention was still outside, caught on the orange seat of my old swing, the patch of silver ice beneath it. I didn’t shake my head this time.

“Oh.” There was a glint of satisfaction in her tone. She moved around behind me, placed her mug down in front of me, hugged me from behind. “He already has a girlfriend.”

I considered correcting her, but the words didn’t come.

“Well.” She swung a little sideways so that our hug dipped to the left. Then she released my shoulders and kissed me lightly on the crown of my head. She reached for her coffee and walked to the sliding door. She gazed out at the snow. “You’re very young. Girlfriends are usually pretty temporary.” She stayed still for a few moments, like she’d reminded herself of something that pushed her thoughts far away. Then she turned around and faced me. “We’ll go underwear shopping tomorrow, okay? I actually need a bunch of new things too.”

*   *   *

She took me to a department store at Yonge and Bloor. She said they’d have all the quality labels there and that if I didn’t find anything we could walk to the boutiques on Bloor Street. We took the escalator up to the third floor, the lingerie department, and she led me along an aisle, the floor milky and impenetrable, smooth enough to skate on. We passed display after display of hanging silky things, transparent panties that dangled from plastic hangers, bras trimmed with forests of lace. The light made jewels in their creases. The air smelled like cellophane, cardboard, and Christmas trees.

At the desk a girl with peroxide hair and long nails was talking on the phone. She reminded me of Puma, and as she raised a finger to indicate she’d be a minute, I let my eyes dip down to where her tank top met her breasts. The skin on her chest had a painted quality, tanned and tinged with orange. I could just see the top of her black bra, crunchy, reinforced lace peeking over the seam of her shirt.

She took me to a fitting room. I took off my shirt and she wrapped a tape measure over my bra. She smelled like sweet artificial strawberries, and as she leaned over me I saw half-moons of white under her arms, small clumps of congealed goo. Her breasts swung right beneath my face as she measured me and for a second they grazed my collarbones. I didn’t move.

“You’re tiny.” She looked at the dimensions on the tape, then up at me. “In a good way.” I smelled nicotine on her breath. “Do you have a boyfriend?”

“Yeah.” I flicked my hair over my shoulder. “But he’s a lot older than me.”

“Oh.” She leaned away from me, surprised. “That’s cool. My boyfriend’s a lot older than me too.”

My mom had assembled two piles, black satiny stuff for herself and things she thought I’d like. I thumbed through them. They were mostly cotton and lightweight, panties with full bums and pretty eyelets, soft-cup bras you could fold delicately away. They were all wrong, and the wrongness of them, their inadequacy, throbbed from a spot just below my navel.

“What?” My mom picked up a particularly pretty pink camisole, ran it between her fingers. “You don’t like these?”

I didn’t answer. The salesgirl took a step forward. She was frowning in my mom’s direction. She turned to me.

“Give me a sec.”

She came back a few minutes later with a handful of underwear, laid them out on the fitting room table. They were thongs and G-strings in slippery nylons. Some had trinkets fastened to their sides, others had sequins sewn into different shapes on their fronts: hearts, diamonds, and hot lips. I pulled out a pair with a zebra pattern and white fur trim along the top.

“It’s what they’re all wearing,” the girl told my mom, taking a silver one from the pile and handing it to me. It felt like a bathing suit. I looked at the crotch; it was a long narrow triangle, like a skinny bandage. “That stuff”—she pointed at what my mom had selected—“it’s really more early twenties.”

“Oh,” my mom said. She dipped her hand into the pile and pulled out a satiny red thong. She draped it on the back of her hand like it was worth a lot of money, considered it for a moment with a curious affection.

“I know.” The girl reached out and snatched it from her. “It’s so not your thing.”

My mom opened her mouth as though she were going to contradict this, but stopped herself mid-thought. Her hand fluttered to her neck, fiddled with her pearl.

“Here.” The girl handed me something else, a bra on a hanger. It was black and made of rough, substantial lace with a plastic finish. Even empty, the cups retained the shape of small breasts. “This’ll give anyone cleavage.”

*   *   *

I chose four thongs and three bras. That night, I laid them all out on my bed and tried to figure out which combination Roderick would like best. I’d done more Internet research and knew that part of the appeal of younger women, aside from their hard bodies and prettier faces, was that they’d wear skanky clothing that men pretended was beneath them but secretly yearned for. If Roderick had a girlfriend his age, she’d wear the kind of underwear my mom had chosen, silky, discreet things that needed to be washed by hand. I took off all my clothes and slipped on the shiny silver thong and the hard, molded bra. I opened my closet door and examined my reflection in the full-length mirror. The nylon string disappeared inside my bum cheeks and then reappeared to make a T along my lower back. I pulled at it, let it snap my skin.

I opened my bedroom door and listened. I could hear the murmur of my mom talking in the kitchen. My dad was at a hospital fund-raising dinner, so she must have been on the phone. I walked down the hallway. The lights were off, but I could make out the bright skin of the naked Goya on the wall. I went down the stairs, planting a foot meticulously on each step, letting the sprigs of carpet absorb my soles. Behind me, I could feel the glowing half-moons of my bum, tingling with nakedness. I tiptoed across the main floor hall toward the basement stairs. I couldn’t see my mom but I could hear her. She was saying
I know
over and over again into the receiver.
I’m going to. I can’t take it. I know. I will
. I shut the basement door behind me.

I took the
Manon
disc out of its laminate envelope and slipped it inside the DVD player. I selected my
pas de deux
. Manon lifts herself from bed and steps slowly across the stage. The first strains of violin warm bit by bit until they swell into overlapping outbursts. I pushed my arms away from me, my fingers sifting through the air in a sinewy slo-mo. I stepped into the first
attitude
position. I looked at the TV, where the ballerina held the same pose, her slip floating around her legs. The basement’s dim overhead light blurred the screen right below her and I could just make out my reflection in the TV, the parallel line of my leg and then, instead of a costume, the gleam of my white bum.